lundi 24 avril 2017

Saint IVO de HUNTINGDONSHIRE, ermite et évêque

Ivo of Huntingdonshire, Hermit B (AC)

(also known as Ivia, Yvo)

Date unknown. According to medieval legend, Saint Ivo was a Persian bishop who
enjoyed great honor and luxury in his own land but he yearned for a more disciplined
and arduous life. Together with three companions he went to England. They
settled as a hermits in the remote, wild fenlands in Huntingdonshire. There
they died (in the 7th century according to the legend), and would have been
forgotten.

However, about 1001, this
story was attached to some bones with a bishop's insignia found in Slepe (near
Ramsey abbey). Saint Ivo may have had no historical existence, though Saint
Ives in Huntingdonshire is named for him. Goselin ("Vita S. Yvonis"
in Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, civ. 84 ff), who died about 1107, says
that Ivo's cultus had been extant for a century. Following a peasant's dream,
these episcopal bones were unhesitatingly identified as those of Ivo.

The four bodies, including
those presumed to be Ivo, were translated to Ramsey Abbey, where a holy well
sprung up, at which many miracles were performed as recorded by Ramsey's third
abbot, Whitman. About a century later, light appeared at night reaching from
Ramsey to Slepe, which was interpreted as meaning that the bones of Ivo's
companions should be translated back to Slepe, where a new foundation from
Ramsey could enjoy this subsidiary shrine.

The Saint Ives, formerly
Porth Ia, in west Cornwall, however, is named for Saint Ia (Attwater, Benedictines,
Bentley, Farmer, Husenbeth).

In art, Saint Ivo is
portrayed as a Persian hermit with the attributes of a bishop. He is venerated
at Huntingdonshire (Saint Ives, Ramsey) (Roeder).

Bishop.
Hermit
at Huntingdonshire, England.
The city of Saint Ives (formerly Slepe), Huntingdonshire (modern
Cambridgeshire), England
is named for him. His gravesite was lost for years, but in 1001
four bodies were uncovered in an unmarked grave; one bore a bishop‘s
insignia. A local layman
had a vision that this was the body of Ivo, and all four were translated to the
Ramsey Abbey.
A spring soon appeared near the site of their interment, its waters known for
healing miracles.
A later vision convinced the brothers at Ramsey to keep the relics with
the bishop‘s
seal, and return the bodies of the three companions to Slepe.